Archive for June, 2009

Fear and love sometimes feel the same, like a thousand violent butterflies beating their wings against your stomach, shredding their way out.

Hope, as I’ve said before, is a knife edge. And I am currently quivering with hope and fear. Knives and butterflies.

I think my current state is quite aptly described by the word “anxious”, with a side of “nervous” and a pinch of “fretful” thrown in. But I’m working, oh so hard, to be zen about it. To say, “what will be, will be.” And be ok with that.

It’s just that I don’t know what will be. And in the not-knowing lies the anxiety.

Let me be all cryptic for now. I’ll explain on the other side. Deal?

Until then, a little Kristy Bowen to make us all feel better. Or at least to make me feel better…

fretby Kristy Bowen

Lets say a woman’s heart
is like a windup bird.
The conservatory filled
with oranges and the cellar
disordered, unstable
with the pull of thieves

And here, my sleight of hand,
my tour de force,
skirts come all undone
and tapping out code beneath
the dressing table. I am
impossibly lovely, impossibly
fixed against the horizon.
Any attempt at flight
ruining all the furniture.

This is what my brain now consists of. Absolute mush. Like congealed oatmeal sort of mush. Worms in rain puddle mush. Soggy cornflakes mush. You get the picture.

I have procrastinated on blogging because of said mush brain. What do I have to contribute when I’m a soggy mess? And I have, on general principle, refrained from posting here when I have nothing to contribute…

But sometimes when you sit in front of the blank page (or text box) and just start writing, something satisfying takes shape. Something that needed to be said. You make an appointment with the muse, as the workshop leaders say, and then you wait.

Of course, you probably shouldn’t do this waiting in public. But I shouldn’t have had french fries for lunch, either. And I did. And here we are.

I’m nearly 3 weeks into the new job and less than 1 week away from opening my home for strangers to tramp through. In the last 2 weeks I have spent more time and dollars at Crate and Barrel (votive holders), Cost Plus (vases, curtains, wall decor), Pier One (more vases), SatinBox (mirrored fruit), Target (sheets, silk pillows, curtain rods, and more curtains), Marshall’s (candles, throw rugs, more silk pillows), and Restoration Hardware (real fancy bookends) than I have in my entire previous lifetime.

It feels very adult. And sometimes I have trouble believing that I am a “real” adult. You’d think I’d be getting over that soon.

Anyway, Boy and I decided to save ourselves the thousands required to hire a professional stager and just stage our house ourselves. (I’m hoping that one of the benefits of this decision is that I get to keep all of the aforementioned vases and fancy bits. I will cut anyone who tries to make me return those mirrored apples, I swear.)

I’ve enlisted the eyeballs of my trusty pal Kathy, asking her to critique the results of my shopping and furniture scooting. She’s well qualified for this task due to her own formidable decorating skilz and vast experience with HGTV consumption. My neighbor Roy the Art Director has also pitched in. They both agree that I apparently have excellent taste. Well, duh. *polishes fingernails on lapel*

Meanwhile, in the midst of all this hullaballoo, LeeLoo’s getting stressed out. She’s all, “WTF is my comfy couch?” I have explained that the comfy couch is not gone forever, it was just less visually appealing than the teeny leather couch that now takes its place. The Loo is not pleased. I can’t blame her, but I don’t speak dog well enough to competently explain what’s going on. I’m hoping extra rations of pupperoni will do the trick.

In times like these when your head is up your own ass and all you can think about is the next 15 things on your to-do list that MUST be done yesterday, it’s easy to forget that the rest of the world is carrying on. NPR cures me of this delusion.

Just today on my way to work, I was reminded that a hateful racist murdered someone at the Holocaust Museum, Iran has possibly world-shaking elections tomorrow, Swine Flu (a.k.a. “Hamthrax”) is now classified as a global pandemic, New York is arguing about gay marriage, the FDA is going to regulate tobacco, Detriot is still fucked, 17 ethnic Uighur prisoners from Guatanamo Bay now have refuge in Palau, and the economy continues to give people aneurysms.

So you know, there’s a few things going on out there besides my own small personal hurricane. Good to remember.

Wow, 2009, you’re hardcore.

Clearly the muse has nothing truly profound to deliver today, although I am on draft #2 of two different poems, one about religion and one about dogs that begins with the lines:
“After yelling at my dog,
I decide I will be a terrible mother.”

So there’s that.

Apologies for the continued random nature of my blog posts. It’s gonna be this way for awhile. Perhaps I’ll break it up with some poetry when the dog poem is finished.

Meanwhile, you can enjoy some equally random grafitti apparently crafted by some dude named Kevin Harris, although I have a feeling that all he ever did is sign his name with a blue spray can. Correct me if I’m wrong, mister Harris, wherever you are.